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Last of the Mitford sisters the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire has died aged 94 (Daily Mail)
• Born Deborah Mitford in 1920, she was the youngest of the six Mitford girls
• Prince of Wales paid tribute to her 'unique personality' and 'original approach to life'
• She had tea with Hitler, with whom her sister, Unity, was besotted, in 1937
• Married Lord Andrew Cavendish in 1941 and moved into Chatsworth House
• Known as Debo, the Duchess had seven children of whom three survived
• Her son, Peregrine, 70, became the 12th Duke when Andrew died in 2004
• They also had daughters Lady Emma, now 71, and Lady Sophia, now 57
• After her husband's death, she left Chatsworth, Derbys, for nearby vicarage

Hello wfgodot,
Thank-you! Unlike today when it's the Kardashians 24/7. These were woman whose lives of privilege allowed them to live out their lives on the world stage.

Miss you and ~N/T~ on the Holly Bobo thread.

I thought the following interesting. This is a copy and paste from the 'Comments' from your linked website:William (Billy) Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington and older brother to Andrew Cavendish, married Kathleen Kennedy in London in 1944. For those of you without a clue, Kathleen Kennedy was a sister to John Kennedy of the Kennedy clan. William Cavendish was shot and killed by a sniper in Belgium during WWII when he was serving with the Guards Armoured Division. Kathleen Kennedy died just a couple of years later in a plane crash in Europe. Fred Astaire's sister, Adele, was married to Charles Cavendish who died of alcoholism in 1938. Well, there you have it.

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Several friends expressed horror when I told them that I was comparing the Mitfords to the Kardashians. One wrote: “The Mitford sisters were wonderful and Love in a Cold Climate is the sort of blissfully perfect yarn you discover in a bookcase at home, pages well-fingered from years of adoration. The Kardashians, however, are the kind of low lives one discovers while being subjected to the treadmill in a gym by virtue of the staff having control over your TV destiny.”

Exactly. The comparison is odious; still, this is worth reading. In defense....

I take his point, but I think what he is objecting to is actually the format in which the Kardashians are presented to us. The works of Nancy and Jessica Mitford were funny, tender, romantic stories, rich with incidental asides and unique characters. Keeping Up with the Kardashians may not compare to the Mitfords’ novels, but the cult of celebrity which surrounds the family, does.
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The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, by Mary S. Lovell, is the best book I've read about this fascinating (and annoying) family. When I toured Chatsworth a number of years ago, Debo herself was behind the counter at the gift shop.

The Duchess also owned a pub, albeit a rather posh one that's more like a small hotel. Here are clips from an long interview she did with the man who leases and runs that pub, when she held a book-signing event there.

The full, unedited interview in two parts can be seen at this link. It was a mistake for me to watch it because it's Sunday, and seeing that pub has made me long for an English, Sunday pub lunch with proper Yorkshire puddings. The nearest I'll get here in Germany is Sauerkraut and knodels. It's just not the same. http://www.theswanswinbrook.co.uk/the-mitfords/

• In this 2007 interview, 'Debo', Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, talks about her relationships with her famous sisters and her love for Elvis Presley

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With one sister imprisoned for being a Nazi sympathiser and another who was so besotted with Hitler that she shot herself, one might assume that some stigma would have stuck to the Mitford name during the war. Deborah, though, insists that she was never aware of any. 'I mean, I'm sure there must have been, but I certainly never lost any friends as a result. They were just very sad for all the horrible things that had happened.'

'What did you think of Oswald Mosley?'

'Oh, I loved him,' she says without hesitation.
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One feels one's admiration for the youngest Mitford sink to rock bottom here. In fact, this sums up the odiousness of the family's world-view. Only Nancy, Decca, and perhaps Pam appeared unaffected by the brutality of its right-wing pomposity.